ROAD TO CHIEF JUS­TICE

Former Chief Jus­tice Willy Mu­tunga took early re­tire­ment and left of­fice on June 16, giv­ing way to the ap­point­ment of a new CJ. He re­tired a few hours af­ter de­liv­er­ing a rul­ing in a case in which Deputy Chief Jus­tice Kalpana Rawal and Supreme Court Judge Philip Tunoi had ap­pealed against re­tir­ing at the age of 70, fol­low­ing the age cap in the new Con­sti­tu­tion. The two were chal­leng­ing a Ju­di­cial Ser­vice Com­mis­sion no­tice to re­tire. They said they were hired un­der the old Con­sti­tu­tion that set the re­tire­ment age at 74. In a rul­ing, the ma­jor­ity of Supreme Court judges up­held a Court of Ap­peal rul­ing that they re­tire at 70. Af­ter the po­si­tion of CJ was de­clared va­cant, the JSC in­vited qual­i­fied ap­pli­cants to ap­ply. The in­ter­views were held from Au­gust 29 to Septem­ber 15. On Septem­ber 22, Jus­tice David Maraga was nom­i­nated CJ and his name for­warded to the Pres­i­dent, who for­warded it to the Na­tional Assem­bly for vet­ting. He was vet­ted on Oc­to­ber 13. If MPs ap­prove him, Pres­i­dent Uhuru Keny­atta will of­fi­cially ap­point him and swear him in as Chief Jus­tice.